


Wish

by tvsn



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5943031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvsn/pseuds/tvsn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna and Hewlett flirt under the falling sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Not even going to lie, I really hate this, but I think I would found it cute if I hadn’t been the one to write it. It started out as an idea for a short comic which I still plan to post on tumblr (tavsancuk) for Valentine’s Day. While drafting it I was just like “Oh, yeah, I also know a few adjectives.” And then this happened. 
> 
> Maybe (hopefully!) you’ll enjoy reading it more than I enjoyed writing it.

He first noticed that the light was on when his eyes followed the trajectory of the second meteoroid he’d witnessed speeding through the evening’s sky to the window. The hypotheses, calculations, explanations and expectations that had consumed him throughout the early evening dissipated in the face of blind hope. He abandoned the open pavilion where his telescope stood and approached the illuminated aperture on the other side of the building. Though he’d walked the short distance at an unhurried pace, when he reached his destination he could hear the sound of his pounding heart in between stunted breaths.

It was not as if he’d never requested the honor of her presence before. It was not that he questioned either his research or if, when the night proved him correct, she would marvel at the celestial event he longed to show her. It was that lately that was all he’d been able to offer. He worried she was growing bored of him. He worried that she wasn’t. Lately he’d given her so many facts and figures, filling silence with science chiefly so it wouldn’t be open to the sin of words he hadn’t yet dared to formulate, even within the relatively secure confines of his own mind. Words that mustn’t be spoken and needn’t be thought. Words that he wanted to say to a married woman.

“Mrs. Strong?” he called out, not loud enough to draw much attention. She mightn’t have noticed him had she not been sitting near the bank. Anna approached the window. Failing to open it, she gestured that she couldn’t hear the rather long winded phrasal of the request he was butchering despite having rehearsed it several times in his head. He motioned for her to come down. She pointed to her undone hair. He shook his head, pointing first to her, then to himself, and finally to the now quite sky. Smiling, she shook her head again, emphasizing the fact that her thick, brown waves were hanging at her shoulders, which she drew up into an exaggerated shrug before disappearing.

He returned to his telescope, disappointed that he had been rejected, happy to have seen her at all, but mostly ready to return to the task at hand. He was suddenly aware of all of the problems his current location created. The magistrate had too many trees on the edge of his property. There was too much light coming from the house. He looked at his time piece. It had been a quarter hour since his last sighting, even if he factored in that he’d missed one or two projectiles during his attempt to secure Mrs. Strong’s company, he still had a while to wait before the sky really opened up to a shower. He could go elsewhere.

He was walking down the private road leading away from Whitehall when he heard footsteps hastening towards him.

“Major Hewlett!” Anna cried out. She practically bumped into him when he turned in surprise.

“Mrs. Strong.” he smiled. “Forgive me, I was under the assumption that you would not be joining me this evening.”

“I expected that you wished for me to meet you at your telescope.” He could tell her statement was a question of adequacy. Dressed in clothing more suited to wind-chill than culture, she played with the hair she had simply braided.

“Ah – no. I did intend for us to enjoy some manner of stargazing, but the telescope isn’t necessary. In fact, it may even prove detrimental. All we need is a dark and open sky.”

“What is it that you want to show me, Major?”

“Something I promise you’ll enjoy.”

Hewlett’s face was pinned in a permanent smile as they walked together thought the crisp autumn evening. He occasionally glanced at the young woman on his arm, each time with increasing surprise that she seemed to be staring back at him.

“What is it?”

“Where are you taking me?” she pinched him. For a moment he couldn’t tell if it was playful or if something about the stillness and the darkness the evening brought to the outskirts of town was making her uneasy. “I’m not keen on surprises, Edmund.” she said though a smile.

“You are, you’re just impatient.”

Hewlett looked around. The night was empty save for the stars and the weeds growing where a field used to be. Part of an old fence still stood. After testing its stability, he helped his companion to climb it before joining her himself.

“Look up.” he told her. “Do you see the line of stars between the big and little dippers?”

“Um.”

“May I?”

She nodded. He placed a hand on her cheek, adjusting her line of vision. Feeling the warmth of her skin, he wondered if his hand was too cold and quickly removed it.

“There. Do you see?”

Anna correctly identified the constellations he mentioned as a point of reference. She wondered what it was about the major that she particularly connected with as he traced the line of stars separating the pictures she could name but couldn’t visualize. They shared so very little beyond their otherwise dissociative tendencies. Yet something in him made her feel so much less callous. The enemy who forced her to disarm by lowering his own shield.

“Eltanin and Rastaban, the dragon’s eyes.” Hewlett clarified.

“Would they not be better viewed through your telescope, Edmund?”

“No. Keep your eyes there and wait.”

“What for?”

“Shh. I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

She turned to give him an inquisitive smile, he returned the sentiment, but directed her eyes back to sky. His own remained on her. He asked her about her day and received a few characteristically uncommitted responses before allowing a comfortable silence to briefly settle in.

Just when Anna’s patience seemed to be waning, a meteoroid tore its way into the atmosphere, burning the sky where it fell.

She gasped, delighted, at the sighting. Hewlett felt her body as she leaned into him to hold her balance when the shower started in full.

“Edmond! Why this is absolutely wonderful! I have never actually seen a shooting star before.”

“Ah, yes well, I thought you might like it.”

He watched the reflection of the stars in her dark eyes as her expression became increasingly illuminated by each transient streak.

“The Draconoids are an oddity,” he explained, “whereas most meteor showers are best viewed between moonset and dawn, they can be best seen directly after nightfall, around every six and a half years. They are not stars, strictly speaking-”

“Can I still make a wish?” Anna interrupted.

“A wish?”

“Have you never heard of wishing upon a star?”

“No, I have. I just haven’t.”

“I find that truly impossible to comprehend.”

“Why, have you?”

“Surely.”

He considered the matter for a moment. “I suppose I romanticize the night sky in other ways. I prefer to reflect on the scholarship behind our limited understanding, to imagine the ways in which future generations will expand upon it. Or to imagine greater minds than my own making the discoveries that have led to our current comprehension of the cosmos. But projected my hopes or desires onto a celestial event? I hardly see what the stars have to do with my personal impulses towards attainment.”

“Why not? If you can predict their movement with reasonable certainty, it seems as reasonable foundation as any.” she challenged.

“I suppose I long for so many things which are simply out of my grasp, I should doubt the sky contains enough stars to number them all.”

“Sometimes I find that I feel the same way. But-” she stopped.

“But?”

“Do you see that one?” she pointed. “That one was mine. You’ll have to wait and find another.”

He was looking at her, not at the shower. It took Anna a moment to notice.

“Have you ever had a wish fulfilled?” he asked.

There was something unspoken between them. Anna thought it at least as obvious to Edmund as it was to her. As it was to the whole of Setauket. She wondered if it was appropriate to state what she was thinking. _You are here beside me. How many wishes did I spend for this great comfort?_ Instead she just smiled, not wanting to allude to all that separated them.

“You?”

The major turned his head back toward the heavens without answering. Anna followed suit.

“There.” Anna pointed to no projectile in particular. “You can have it.”

“Alright. I wish -” Edmund started.

“No!”

“I’m doing it wrong?”

“You mustn’t speak it aloud! That practically ensures that your wish won’t come true. How are you, of all people, unaware of the rules?”

“There are rules which govern superstition?” Hewlett shook his head.

“No doubt made by an Englishman to ensure impulse control.”

“Ah, I suppose I can see some sense to it then. My wish _has_ , as a matter of fact, come true.” He smiled, feeling the weight and warmth of her body snuggled against his.

“Then it wasn’t a good wish.”

“What did you wish for, then?”

“Can’t say.”

“I thought testing authority was a Continental trait.”

“If my lips are in the employment of speaking, they cannot possibly play the part I’d rather like them too.”

“And what is that exactly?” he turned to face her.

No further words were spoken. They needn’t have been. Hewlett’s better hesitations all seemed to abandon him when their eyes met. He tilted his head to meet hers.

If he ever found the strength to tear his lips away from Anna’s, he knew they would find her again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> That was painful, let me cover myself right quick:  
> The periodic comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner was first discovered in 1900. Had Hewlett somehow knowledge of it back in the 18th century, this fic still wouldn’t fit the timeline, as its apparition would have been ca. early mid-October 1780, at which point, the moon was nearly full and the view of the shower would have been proportionally obstructed. 
> 
> So … why did I pick it? As was stated in the dialog, the meteor shower resulting from this parent body is visible at nightfall. I just don’t see Hewlett going into Anna’s chambers in the middle of the night hoping she’d be keen to geek out with him. Since the visibly/intensity of a meteor shower to some degree just comes down to luck, I find it very unlikely that he would have planned this in advance. 
> 
> Anyway, their best moments all seem to be spontaneous.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
